To Catch a Ball
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: Orochimaru knows how the story ends. And soon Sasuke'll be at her doorstep, all "Sakura, I'm sorry." And "Sakura, daisuki da yo."


**Title: To Catch a Ball**

**Rating: T**  
><strong>Spoilers: G<strong>eneral

**Characters**: Orochimaru; Sasuke

**Summary: And he'll be at her doorstep, all "Sakura, I'm sorry." And "Sakura, daisuki da yo."**

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

He sees the team first in the forest of death, and he hates Hiruzen a little more. What was the man thinking, what, when he made another team like that? Had early senility swept him?

The sense of déjà vu comes as a punch in the stomach, knocks the breath out of his lungs, and waters his eyes, and he's left gasping for breath.

And for a second it's not Sasuke Sakura and Naruto, it's him and Tsunade and Jiraiya, and he has to convince himself that the stab of pain in his chest is only his imagination.

How dare he, how dare that old bastard even for a moment consider the vague possibility of putting those on the same team?

And no, it hardly changes his plans, it doesn't change them at all. But for the briefest of moments he feels like apologizing, and saying "Yeah, I'm taking your teammate and tainting him for forever, but I swear, I didn't mean for it to happen like that. Blame the Hokage I'm going to kill."

And yeah. It sounds absurd to his on ears too.

He is angry, he's angry at Sarutobi, and Kakashi and Sasuke and himself, because he knows what comes next, he knows what lies a little ways down the road, a little something that will turn his entire plan against him, the one corner stone that will have them all crashing down. Team Hiruzen lies down the road. And Orochimaru knows the story all too well, he wrote the story and he wishes, he almost wishes that Sasuke would have more sense than him, that Naruto would be more persistent than Jiraiya, that the girl with the flower name will love her teammate more than Tsunade loved him.

But the wheels have turned, the plan is in motion, Sasuke stands before him, and Orochimaru swallows bitter regrets. He knows how the story ends. He's seen it already, Team Hiruzen, Team Minato, and he doesn't like the ending. But he's just a tad bit more selfish than sappy, and he accepts Sasuke's darkness with open arms, and shapes it, and sits down plotting behind a shogi board, drinking himself into oblivion, and it's all just a gamble, isn't it? Will the boy break? Will the boy stay? Will the boy leave?

Will the girl with the flower name be enough to call him back home form the pointless quest for revenge?

He knows how his story ends. But what about Sasuke?

One grey dull morning in the second year when Sasuke's in Sound, when the teen is just awakening next to him in the bed they've shared so many times already, Orochimaru chuckles, and says, airily, dismissively,

"Do you want to bet, Sasuke-kun, that you will have left me by the end of the third year?"

"What will you win from that bet anyway?"

"Nothing, Sasuke-kun. Absolutely nothing," and he pulls the boy in for a kiss, and ignores the heaviness in his chest.

He knows how the story ends, and it has no place for him. Soon Sasuke will be gone, will have left, believing himself strong enough, and Itachi will die, a thought not as satisfying as it should be, and Orochimaru will have a new vessel, and be on the lookout for powerful kekkei-genkai, and Jiraiya will still send him early copies of the Icha Icha for editorial work, and Tsunade will still be Konoha's crumbling pillar. The story ends right where it started, except everyone else has moved and they stand rooted on spot, the three sannin in an eternal deadlock.

And Sasuke will stand in front of Sakura's door, hands dripping with blood, Sharingan swirling lazily in blood red irises, all "Sakura, I'm sorry." And "Sakura, daisuki da yo", and there's nothing, nothing Orochimaru can do about it.

And he curses Hiruzen, may his descend to Hell be painful and slow, because the lines between team seven and team Sannin are way too blurred, and make him think of another team altogether, where there was Nawaki and not Naruto, and which was exactly the same, except not quite, and people have all forgotten that he was the sensei of Tsunade Senju's brother.

Orochimaru notes, with a certain air of serene disinterest that all his students have the unfortunate habit of either dying, or being completely psychotic and devoted to murdering him.

He knows how the story ends. But it doesn't mean he won't try to change it, as he seduces Sasuke with serpentine words and promises of limitless power.


End file.
